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Touching on what DaPi posted. There are quite a few MA(mortgage alternatives)/ME(mortgage elimination) programs floating around. These programs require upwards of 3000 dollars upfront to "eliminate" ones mortgage. Many believe these.....ahem.....companies are using the 3 grand collected from however many people to pay off the mortgage. I would like to ba a fly on the wall when the folks at the later end of it are left holding the bag, as in waiting for "snipe" to come running.

RickSigh.....those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end.
I too remember when this place was coo.

Letting me run my own retirement savings? Hell yea where do I sign? The less the government is involved with my money the better. Unlike other people who want to sit back and let the government take care of them. Bunch of lazy f*#&ers

Welfare, Social Security are all programs to keep people as sheeple bahhh bahhh.

Kind of reminds me of the grasshopper and ant story.

All summer long, the ant works hard in the withering heat, struggling and slaving away, building and fortifying his house and laying up supplies for the winter. Meanwhile, the grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool. He pokes fun at the ant. He laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

When winter comes, it's a different story. The ant is warm and well fed, comfortable in his home. The grasshopper, meanwhile, has no food or shelter. He is shivering and miserable. So, the grasshopper calls a press conference.

He demands to know why the ant is warm and well fed, while others are cold and starving. CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews all show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home, seated at a table filled with food.

America is stunned to see the sharp contrast. People are outraged at this injustice. How can this be, that in a country of such resource and wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so unfairly, even as the ant basks in comfort?

Kermit the Frog appears with the grasshopper on Oprah, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson gets into the action; he stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We Shall Overcome." Jesse then leads the group in a solemn prayer for the grasshopper's sake.

Prominent Democrats, from Dick Gephart to Al Sharpton, conduct national interviews with Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams, explaining that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper. They call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair
share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity for Grasshoppers Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs. More taxes and fines are assessed. Finally, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The ant loses the case.

In the end, the grasshopper finishes up the last bits of the ant's food. He now resides in a government house, which happens to be the ant's old house. But the house is crumbling around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant is long gone. No one has heard from the ant in a long time; apparently, he just disappeared into the snow.

Finally, one day, the grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

How true it is

Oracle it's not just a database it's a lifestyle!
--------------BTW....You need to get a girlfriend who's last name isn't .jpg

Now how do you personally measure "size of government"? Republicans tend to do it by "amount collected in taxes", which puts recent republican presidents at an advantage because through fiscal mismangement they decrease taxes while increasing government spending (yes, even Saint Ronald did that). Democratic presidents are left with the job of raising taxes to pay the bills for their republican predecessor.

Now then, you want to run your own retirement savings? I bet that would have sounded real nice back in the mid-90's, but look at the trend ... http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=5y and http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EIXIC&t=5y ... that's the size of your retirement nest egg your're looking at there. In investing your retirement fund privately through brokers etc. you are competing against some of the most sophisticated and powerful organizations in the world, and the people who will make the money are not the little folks like us, my friend. They're the ones who are donating their spare cash towards the re-election of other rich guys who will ensure that the policies go their way.

As for the grasshopper and the ant ... it's one of the conceits that middle and upper class Americans (Christian Americans in particular) are told by their peers, that poverty is caused by laziness. It's how they manage to feel good about themselves as they shop at minimum-wage-no-health-care-made-in-China Wal*Mart while voting to cut welfare programs.

Now, here's how clued up George Bush is about people who didn't get everything handed to them on a plate ... from the same Q&A session ...

THE PRESIDENT: ... Mary is with us. Mary Mornin. How are you, Mary?
MS. MORNIN: I'm fine.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Okay, Mary, tell us about yourself.
MS. MORNIN: Okay, I'm a divorced, single mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. First of all, you've got the hardest job in America, being a single mom.

...
....

THE PRESIDENT: And so thank you for asking that. You don't have to worry.
MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.
THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, hopefully, this will help you get you sleep to know that when we talk about Social Security, nothing changes.
MS. MORNIN: Okay, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: That's great.

"Fantastic", yeah. Is the phrase "disconnected moron" too strong? If laziness caused poverty he'd be begging for change from hobos.

Somehow, it feels like Friday arrived early again this week.

Oh, last point ...

"My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results … Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all."

Your charts are compairing apples to oranges. Also, if you notice you started your analysis right at the bubble burst of the dot coms. Try pulling up the American stock exchange or the S&P 500.

Let's do this.. at the age of 21 you start your first job. Every month you get SS (social security) taken out. Over the years the amount of SS taken out will increase but lets use a standard figure of $7,500 per year.

@ $7,500 a year at an 8% growth rate when you reach age 65 you will have roughly 2.5 mil. That 2.5mil will last you for the next 25 years at an anual annuity of 184k. That's roughly 15k a month tax free. AND, if I die my family gets whats left (unlike SS).

The math doesn't lie. You go ahead with your SS and get your $1,000 a month check from the government for all your hard work... they'll take care of you.

rule #1 : Always pay yourself first.

rule #2 : Never expect anyone to take care you.

you are competing against some of the most sophisticated and powerful organizations in the world, and the people who will make the money are not the little folks like us, my friend

It's thinking like that will keep you a "little folk".

answer me this; If SS so good why is it mandatory and if it weren't mandatory who would contribute to it?

Last edited by OracleDoc; 02-09-2005 at 06:14 AM.

Oracle it's not just a database it's a lifestyle!
--------------BTW....You need to get a girlfriend who's last name isn't .jpg

Your charts are compairing apples to oranges. Also, if you notice you started your analysis right at the bubble burst of the dot coms. Try pulling up the American stock exchange or the S&P 500.

I did 5 years cos that's what Yahoo would give me, and there's plenty of people who were retiring around then. You want to look at the long-term ...

... at an 8% growth rate

ROTFLMAO. Yeah, 8% average annual returns over 44 years -- if you think that's realistic then no wonder you think you can manage it yourself. * wipes eyes *
Over the past 200 years stocks have yielded about 7% average after inflation (and paying no fees to anyone), but that hides the periods (in some cases decades) where gains were non-existant. Go read the introduction here http://www.fortune.com/fortune/inves...372385,00.html and learn that from 1964 to 1981 the stock market gained one-tenth of one percent, and that's if you match the market and pay no fees.

Rule #1: Everyone thinks they can beat the market, and 99% of them are wrong.

answer me this; If SS so good why is it mandatory and if it weren't mandatory who would contribute to it?

It's mandatory because people are stupid and greedy, and would rather have a plasma TV now than food in 40 years time.

Originally posted by marist89 LMAO. People that invest over the long term and keep a balanced portfolio aren't grossly affected by market swings.

People who are retiring do indeed invest over the long term, but they don't decide when they can get out of the market -- that is decided for them when they are no longer employable, and the times when older people are getting fired in favour of younger (ie cheaper ones) is the same time that the stock market collapses. The rich guys got the tip-off from their buddies just before this happened, and dumped their over-priced stock on your sorry ass in plenty of time.